Todd's repackaged his short story collection that he was self-publishing last year with a really snazzy new cover (one of the artists is Sanju Nivangune who full disclosure works on my comic, Flying Sparks) and an extra short. If you haven't picked it up, the e-book is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Tree-Luna-Othe...e+tree+of+luna

Most of the stories have been published elsewhere before. "Tribute" was in a Bill Fawcett anthology, I think Liftport or something like that? "Tree" was in Writers for Relief, and I believe its sequel was in a second volume of that. "Why I Shot My Car" comes from Albedo One (could be wrong on that one). "Stone the Crows" he published on his website awhile back. I'm not sure where "Men!" came from, if it was previously published at all. And "Dasher", the new addition was from another Bill Fawcett anthology. For those who may have already picked these up in their collections.

My favorites are "The One Tree of Luna" "Stone the Crows" and "Tribute" (in that order). The subject matter is pretty diverse, and I love that Todd's making a push on non-Pern material. Check it out!

Whoever put together the e-book itself could do with giving it a quick copy-edit, to be honest. There are a lot of issues with the dialogue in the first story: wrong punctuation (periods in place of commas) and missing paragraph breaks for new speakers. Self publishing is no excuse for sloppy publishing.

So, I've read the first story in the set now. "Tree" is a charming tale, but the simplistic language makes it feels very YA in tone, and the bad events that occur feel very plot-coupony. Nothing wrong with either of those things necessarily; lack of depth is a given limitation of a short. On top of that, the narrative voice is very hard to pin down. At some times it feels like the adult man, while at others it's the nine-year old of the days of the tale, and the intimacy of the narrative is at odds with the lack of contractions in the language. It feels quite stilted in those passages, and there are a couple of other odd things, like the bizarre use of 'reverence' in the first paragraph (is that just an Americanism I'm not familiar with?), and the description of Jimmy getting out of his bedroom. How can you dive out of a window, presumably in a flat or downwards direction, grab a branch and then dive UP to grab a rope that's BELOW you? You're not on the moon yet, kiddo...

But it IS a lovely story. It just could be a lot better with a bit of editing, and not just of the copy-variety.

I didn't see the copy-edit issues so I must have read it a little faster.

Possibly. My hardback pace is 100 pages per minute though, so it might be more likely that I just spend more time writing and editing, and I'm more alert to these things. If it was just one, I might have glossed over it, but it happened again and again over the space of several pages.

Now you have me thinking of the story again, there are more and more things I could nitpick about it. I think my amateur editor hat is stuck on my head...nevermind.

Brenda - the phrasing was 'filled me with a reverence' IIRC. I'm used to seeing either 'filled me with reverence' or 'filled me with a sense of reverence', but I've never seen Todd's version before. That's why I asked if it was common american usage. You don't really want obscure phrasing in your first paragraph.

Possibly. My hardback pace is 100 pages per minute though, so it might be more likely that I just spend more time writing and editing, and I'm more alert to these things. If it was just one, I might have glossed over it, but it happened again and again over the space of several pages.

Now you have me thinking of the story again, there are more and more things I could nitpick about it. I think my amateur editor hat is stuck on my head...nevermind.

Brenda - the phrasing was 'filled me with a reverence' IIRC. I'm used to seeing either 'filled me with reverence' or 'filled me with a sense of reverence', but I've never seen Todd's version before. That's why I asked if it was common american usage. You don't really want obscure phrasing in your first paragraph.

I've heard "with a reverence" or using something like reverence after "a" many times. I don't see a problem with it.